[Wonder Warthog]

"I stand by my belief that the two things you talked about there are not the fault of the Federalists, but rather due to modifications in our Constitution pushed through long after the Federalists ceased to exist. Without the direct election of Senators and without the federal income tax, the tax system we have in place now and the land grabs by the government would never have been possible."

And those things happened because the Federalists were wrong, and the Anti-Federalists were right. The central government WAS too powerful, and the mechanisms of restraint WERE too weak. Re-read the Anti-Federalist writings---in light of today's events, they are frighteningly prophetic--especially the sections on the excessive power of the courts.

Although the Federalists ceased to exist AS A POLITICAL PARTY, their political heritage lived on in the structure of the Constitution (as did the heritage of the Anti-Federalists in the Bill of Rights). Time has proven that the restrictions added by the Bill of Rights were insufficient to overcome the deficiencies embedded in the Constitution. Would that more of that structure had been influenced by the Anti-Federalists, rather than just the BoR.

[William McKinley]

Dude, that is just plain silly. Those things were pushed through as Constitutional amendments. The mechanisms of restraint against those are huge.

Those things passed because the nation succumbed to the temptations of direct democracy and of marxist levelling.